Recovery

Have you ever felt trapped in your own head? No? well it sucks.big time.majorly the end.
Going through life normally just living an average life;school,fixing up a truck with one of my best friends and then spending time with my girlfriend everything smooth and streamlined.

Now lets throw another piece into the puzzle. While everything feels normal most of the time any one thing can trigger it. Sitting in math class is the worst. listening paying attention doing my best to learn which is about 100x more than ive ever had to do in a math class before and sitting there that whole time is that nagging feeling that ive been here ive done this...havnt i? and if ive done this and if my brains sneak peak is right this stuff should be breezy right?
The second i grab on to the tendril of a thought,believing that all i will have to do is follow it and remember what i already know...WHAM my thoughts slam into a wall. Now this wall isnt anything solid or impenetrable, that would be too nice no this is more like a foggy semi-clear spongy thing. Looking at it you can tell what you want is just on the other side and there just has to be a way through it looks so pliable and  like it would be so simple to get through but no mater how hard i try no mater what i do i cant get through i cant remember anything useful other than the fact that its already in there.

The other part im not sure how i feel about still. it can be good and bad. Chunks of memory are gone. like not "hey do you remember what bill said that one time?" gone but more like "wasnt that hike great when we almost died?"
With these its not a hey its just out of reach thing here its more of a hole no fuzzy fringes just a clean cut gaping hole in my memories. The thing that gets to me though is that they arnt gone they've been coming back bit by bit triggered by just about anything. A candy on the shelf at a store, a face i recognize in a crowed , a Christmas wreath up on a wall. They come in waves hitting me making my mind go blank except for that old memory that had been buried deep down coming back and washing over me. The first time it happened i was ecstatic my brain had been turned off (just like how everyone always says they wish they could do. but for the record i will never again honestly wish my brain was turned off. to have a blank slate nothing there an inability to concentrate on anything.it sucks.) but when it turned back on it was like a computer doing a systems check. I saw Cinnamon fire jolly ranchers and memories flooded into my head of my childhood my sister and her first boyfriend and how they used to always have something or another like that in their backpacks when they came home to study.

That was the beginning after that memory hit it was amazing every little thing gave me another part of myself back helped my brain start working again but over time it hit a peak and there was less and less that triggered things i started living normal again and things felt as if everything was back but the further ive gotten from that point the more things that pop up. not little things big things.things that shouldnt have gone away.

 Most recently its the Christmas decorations that are doing it. with this part im not sure that its the accident that took these ones away or if my brain is just selectively choosing to ignore everything thats not super major from the month of december of last year. the first day it happened was the worst. I had always remembered my dads surgery hard to forget it was still in the forefront even after the accident it kinda went hand in hand with my...issues to make life in january hard but thats not my point. i was slammed with hours waiting at the hospital with mom spending time with dad there driving back and forth my mind had been all over the place so much was going on all at once and even as it was happening i didnt know what i needed to be concentrating on.
talking with mom today i really just thought about all that has happened in the last year and everything.
Trials with XC,complex life with jess,anat and phys, adventures with matt/kasey/logan ,countless runs,dads health problems,school applications,SR project
i had so much just battering me good bad and in between, it was just complicated trying to balance life and then to have the concussion it was like my brain pushed a reset button.

No mater how far down we fall we can always recover and get back up. this accident has proved that to me. my confidence and desire to be resilient had long been beaten to a pulp and was next to nonexistent and to be faced with something like this where i had a choice.
Conform and let it tear me apart and never force myself through it or i could fight i could recover i could go through every painful frustrating moment of it to come out on top. however much this has sucked and made my life downright crappy at times as with everything there is something to be gained and to grow from and i think for me i needed it so that i could get back to standing up for myself and enduring to the end working for what i know i want and deserve.


-EPJ